#i love inscryption so much its such a good game if you haven't played it you should.

[headless6969]

i have been hyperfixated on inscryption for months help me.

[shadowblade8192]

Shadow's 2024 Games List

idk i thought this would be a cool thing i could do where i go through all the games that i played for the first time in <current year> (side note: i would have put this up last year but there was a latecomer so i delayed it a couple days). It wont include *every* game i played for the first time this year, just games that i started playing this year and played a somewhat decent amount of (not necessarily finished), and going through them all and what I liked and/or didn't like about them. Also a lot of these will be older games, not necessarily games that *released* this year since that would bring the total down to 3.

Also this contains spoilers for basically all the games I played, but I will mention some games specifically in case people haven't played them and wish to, since they may be better going in blind:

Superhot trilogy (Minor stuff from the ending of the third game) Inscryption (Go into this one blind, trust me) I'm sticking a keep reading cut in there. Seriously, go play Inscryption if you haven't already.

So, in a particular order (the order i got them in mostly):

Turnip Boy Robs a Bank

Having played the first game turnip boy commits tax evasion relatively close to launch, I was following the development of this one quite closely, getting to try out the demo, and then getting the game day 1 (in fact this is the only game I have ever purchased day 1), and had a blast. It's a relatively short game, I 100%ed it for the first time in around 11 hours, there is some potential replay value though I cannot deny there is less than other roguelites. The main layout is not random, however some item placement is, and the elevator rooms are random. Still, I had a lot of fun with it, and I can also confidently say I am the only player to ever legitimately reach 1B cash in the game which is something normal to want to achieve.

Lethal Company

Didn't try this one out until about 3 months after release, but was playing it very regularly once I did. Still pick it up every update or so for a few days, the reason I don't play it more is because its a very multiplayer-centric game and requires me to have friends online to play (yes I am aware it can be played solo but its not as fun that way). Very much enjoyed this one, and am eager to see where the developer goes with future updates

Celeste

Playing this gave me a sudden urge to put on a skirt. I'm sure its nothing

Superliminal

Messing around with perspective to solve puzzles, I really enjoyed this one. Puzzle mechanics were very intuitive, and I believe this was the mechanic that would have been used in a canned sequel to portal. It isn't in the portal/hl universe obviously, but I did still have a good time with it

Manifold Garden

Absolutely stunning visuals, it feels more like an art piece made into a videogame and- *searches something up* oh wait it was. Really enjoyed this one, definitely worth giving it a go if you haven't yet

The Pedestrian

Puzzle game involving moving a character across street signs, and the puzzles themselves are good as well. It's the first game on this list I haven't actually finished yet (not 100%ed, that would go to celeste since I have basically just climbed the mountain on that), but what I have played I have thoroughly enjoyed.

Buckshot Roulette

This one was a lot of fun i love gambling. Multiplayer was a great addition but I *wish* the developers let you use it on the itch.io version, but still I'm happy that it exists at all. It's a good game to just pick up and play a round or two for.

Dead Cells

Had a lot of fun with this one, haven't beat it yet but I have played a lot, reached the final boss (I think) once but died to them. It's a great one for my steam deck as its something I can just pick up for a run or two while I'm waiting for something.

Superhot Trilogy

So I first picked up Superhot VR for the PSVR in a cex, since I'd heard about it in passing (well, Superhot as a franchise) and the points on the back of the box sold me enough to drop £8 on this second hand copy. Insanely fun. Best of all three of them, It feels like the concept of the game was made specifically for VR. If you have any VR headset that has the option to buy it, definitely buy it. One of the best games I picked up this year.

After beating and enjoying Superhot VR, I noticed the bundle of the two non-VR games (I believe the first and third in release order) on GOG was on sale, and, well, I enjoyed the VR game so I thought I'd pick up the bundle. The original Superhot was enjoyable, basically the VR game but not in VR and you can move about (Well you could move in the VR game but only as much as you had physical space). Had my fun with that, and then moved onto the third game.

Superhot: Mind Control Delete starts off strong but near the end I was struggling to get through it. A roguelite Superhot? Marketed as more Superhot? Why wouldn't I like it, having liked the first two? Well, I did like it, to begin with. The hacks were a neat mechanic, giving you special abilities, and the health was nice, somewhat counteracting the fact that unlike the other games, you can't "learn" each level, since enemy spawns are procedural (In the first two it was partially a puzzle game in the sense that you needed to work out how to defeat the same set of enemies spawning in the same locations each retry). Cores were interesting, but I mostly avoided them. The whole gimmick of roguelite Superhot was starting to wear a bit halfway through. And then the unkillable enemies started showing up. Basically, the three cores you unlock (you start with one that gives an extra HP for a total of three) all have an unkillable enemy associated with them, and later levels will always have one of these (not related to the core equipped, so you cannot avoid them by only using the default core). You cannot kill them, you must avoid them, and the most annoying one can teleport into you. I was so glad when I found out you can give up the cores to stop them spawning, but that is basically at the end of the game. The ending itself.... you have to wait two and a half hours. With the game running. It does not save your wait time progress.

SH:MCD starts off alright but really isn't that fun later on.

Inscryption

Well, back to games i thoroughly enjoyed. Inscryption is a game that you should go into completely blind. You saw the spoiler warning at the top, right? Go play it if you haven't already. I'm serious. You can read my review later. Go play it then come back. Now, where should I start...

I love this game. A lot. All I knew about it going in was two offhanded mentions in a Pyrocynical video, where he says the ourobouros card can be buffed to like 10k if you waste enough time on it, and also the game looks at your files (if you know of Pyrocynical, you'll be able to guess why he brought that up), the latter of which I forgot about until the moment happened. Also a bundle on steam it had with Buckshot Roulette called "basically the same game". I did not buy that bundle, instead I bought it with a coupon code from the GOG newsletter that, upon looking at SteamDB and GogDB, would put the game down to an even lower price than anyone else would get (seriously do not sleep on GOG's newsletter, it gives out free games and coupons on some pretty decent games, I got Shotgun King: The Last Checkmate on a discount from there last year), and since I knew it was kinda similar to buckshot roulette, I bit the bullet and bought the game.

Started out with Leshy's Act I. I died a lot but had a lot of fun, solving most of the puzzles (on my first playthrough I didn't unlock the ring, nor the bee statue to replace squirrels), and beating the moon on the first attempt that I actually got that far on (so it wasn't until later I found out that you get a champion card on the door instead of a deathcard when you win, also I didn't encounter any death card nodes despite dying enough to. I do kind of wish I beat the moon once before getting the film roll to experience that, but still), and then got confused for 3 minutes after picking up the new game button, not realising I had to actually exit out and start a new game.

Act II was slightly disappointing at first, but it definitely grew on me, and I have replayed it standalone a handful of times with some challenges (e.g. 4 runs where I only use one class of cards, and a run where I use every card I acquire in a run since the only requirement is at least 20 cards, and there didn't appear to be an upper limit. The answer is yes, it's possible, but *very* RNG heavy).

I did enjoy Act III, I wish a few more of the mechanics were brought over to Kaycee's Mod (more on that later, also I do wish there was an option to do an act 3 kaycee's mod run but I do get why that's not there in the vanilla game for lore reasons. I'll get to mods later), but it is a decent act and I like Lonely Wizbot and the fisherman. The Archivist boss fight was fun cause i gave it Daily TV #69 which it put on as a face, and then /dev/core from my pc which was 128TiB. I wish Golly had the ability to interface with GOG Galaxy like it does with Steam to show friends there, but still a good concept.

The Finale was.... certainly interesting. Saying goodbye to all the scrybes, Grimora's interesting concept of the chessboard, Leshy's "One more game" (I did shed a tear when he insisted we kept playing and didn't need to keep score), and Magnificus' "All style no substance" battle (seriously is there anyone who has tried to win at that? I cannot find a single result online for that). All culminating with finding the OLD_DATA and then the final video... and Magnificus' act 2 theme is perfect for credits music.

Kaycee's Mod is great, Basically Act I but with a few mechanics removed (I do miss deathcards but yeah, balancing, same with ouroborous not keeping stat bonuses between runs and some unlocks like the bee statue, squirrel totem, dagger, boons before the final fight, etc., though I wish there were more escape-roomy stuff like act 1 had). Loved (most of) the challenges, Royal's boss fight is a fun alternative if you are bored of the moon (boss totems make no changes since none of Royal's cards have tribes)

Overall I would easily say this is one of the best games I played [for the first time] this year.

Webfishing

Imagine club penguin but instead of a whole island you can only go fishing and you don't get banned for saying fuck. Also gay as hell (positive). It's great, you can, if you want, never use online and exclusively play a singleplayer (or coop with friends only) fishing game where you collect a lot of fish, alternatively you could only use it as an online chatroom, or some mix of fishing and chatting, anything's possible. Good fun, better with friends imo but I like multiplayer with friends if I can. Also you can get drunk.

Balatro

The latecomer I mentioned in the first paragraph (feels like a while ago, I don't know how long it takes to read all this but I started making this post like 2 months ago), I got this one as a gift on christmas (well, a day or two after but it was a christmas present). This one has been a blast, this combined with inscryption being some of the most fun games I played this year is leading me to probably check out some more roguelike deckbuilders next year (well this year since this is going up on jan 1st). It is a very popular recent release so you may have heard about it, but the general gist of the game is you play poker hands to score points, and you get jokers which have effects to increase your score and you progress through the rounds. There's other mechanics that can add or remove or modify cards in your deck (adding 3 new poker hands being five of a kind, flush house (combo of flush and full house), and flush 5 (being 5 of a kind and a flush)). Very fun game and a perfect one for steam deck where I mostly pick games up to play a few rounds of something at a time. Also I found a tool to create an apk from a steam install to play on phone which is neat.

So that was my wrap-up of games this year, overall positive, see you again next year when I do the same thing (hopefully I get enough new games...)

[datastate]

quettasecond:

im going to resume readjng the house husband manga after many years now that i finally have the sevond volume

yoggybloggy:

extremely predictably from the throes of my dungeon meshi reblogging… you should read dungeon meshi… everyone is not lying when they say its extremely good its honestly kind of crazy how well-rounded its excellence is just on all fronts. characters/story/themes/worldbuilding/art/humour etc etc its honestly one of the most well executed media ive seen ever < recency bias but STILL!!!

alethiometer:

inscryption; transistor; bastion; pyre; outer wilds; bugsnax; celeste; anodyne; the entire wtc series although huge cws for it; sea of solitude for a short one with easy gameplay that i think would Get you for manga: houseki no kuni; seconding the dunmeshi rec; witch hat atelier; uhhh probably more that i can't remember rn

azurehaiku:

i'm playing thru cryptid crush right now! really cute, free visual novel where you hang out with a bunch of cryptids while trying to figure out what the deal is with your curse. every design is top notch!!!

hoshizoraorchestra:

witch hat atelier !! i think you would like it very much.

jastertown:

I'm just going to recommend the game that has infected near all a friend group I'm in: In Stars and Time! It's an rpg about looping in time, trying to save the world while you're the only one who knows these loops are even happening. Don't tell your friends! <3 (it's a longer game honestly, and it's worth looking up the trigger warnings just to be safe, but I'm really having fun with it. The party characters are really charming and I love them all)

thank you all so much!!! i've heard of a few of these before, but there are many more that i haven't yet heard of :0 i look forward to seeing them!

does anyone have game/manga recs? i'm trying to compile my bookmarked list before i sleep & so :0

[sketchy-entertainer]

I return with more art. This time for the game, Inscryption! So, be warned, HEAVY SPOILERS ABOUND. PLEASE PLAY THE GAME IF YOU HAVEN'T. I'd hate to spoil it.

Anti spoil circles starts here,

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More circles

Circles are definitely here

Seriously, just play the game

anti spoiler circles end here

We good?

Aight

Anyway, I gave drawing this game a go, so, here we go!

We got PO-3! (P0-3?) I honestly love its smugness and its design. It's one of my favorite scrybes, which isn't saying too much considering I love all four of those scrybes. Seriously, they're a chaotic bunch, and all of them are interesting! P0-3 is just really easy for me to draw, lmao.

It definitely would be the one to know all the cheat codes in a really obscure video game.

Also, stoat.

I also drew these two great buds. I like to imagine that Angler would take Lonely out to fish, and they just relax near the water. I wanna see more of these two, honestly

And finally, an attempt at Leshy. Its really hard to draw him with how scarce the images of him can be. There ain't a full body in sight. Hell, couldn't even find the sprites to thenolayer characters in Act 2

Thanks for coming to my ted talk, lads.

Doodles!

[egg-node]

3, 4, 5, 7 & 8 for the Inscryption ask game?

wah! thank you! :^D

3. Favorite Act? Why? (Mechanics, aesthetic, story, specific moments, etc.)

who am i to deny act 1. played that one most out of all of them, not to mention that i played kaycee's mod like a madman (finally got an all challenges run to succeed OTL). it's just *fun* gameplay. my first go around i made absolutely *boosted* deathcards, and being able to watch them decimate was fun in of itself. and now i'm playing it with only one deathcard, and planning your deck ahead of time and figuring out how to win without a near-guaranteed turn 1 lethal is fantastic as well. and looking back on it in act 2 shows what leshy incorporated from the original game, and what he didn't. some of the dialogue especially from leshy, and also the other scrybes, in this act... im *specifically* thinking about the win dialogue you get from leshy on win 3 and win 4.

4. Favorite Scrybe?

i wonder...... nah it's leshy lmao. especially love how he narrates everything, like in act 2 after his defeat. oh, to get/become a dm as devoted to the craft as him

5. Favorite non-scrybe npc?

(is it cheating to say the archivist) (they're an uberbot. that's not a scrybe.) (i may be cheating just a little when that's p03's interpretation of grimora) (but they're neat. their lines... nice. i think p03 did a good job capturing grimora's voice and cadence and lexicon. and that battle was fun) (also the photographer. much more a bastardization of leshy imo, but that is also fun. to see how p03 sees leshy)

BUT if i had to do non-scrybe-but-reskinned. mayhaps goobert? a funny little guy... someone please help them

7. Favorite theory/theories?

i don't know if this one is a theory - it might be confirmed in game and i just. glanced over it. but if it isn't - i firmly believe that magnificus knew how it all would turn out. this includes leshy losing control, p03 gaining it, and grimora's deletion of the game. and it may be a first instinct to go "why didn't he try to stop it then?" but his premonition may be unchangeable - perhaps in the past he's tried to change the outcome he saw, to no avail. and in the visions we're given in act 1 where magnificus paints the next thing we need to do (eg. unlocking the safe, the knife, the cuckoo clock with the film reel), we're in a white void with a little bit of wood(?) ground. just like what we see in act 3's finale.

does this explain how he treats his subordinates? idk lol.

8. Favorite headcanon(s)?

this is not really a *headcanon* but my head is empty, and this fic is very very good. so this interpretation: "THAT IS ULTIMATELY THE CALLING OF A SCRYBE. NOT TO CREATE, NO- TO HOPELESSLY, LOVINGLY POSTPONE THE INEVITABLE." (from @scrybe-of-beasts fic AN ENDING. absolutely fantastic btw it owns my heart defo read it if you haven't already.) leshy captures beasts, who would otherwise die eventually, and lets them live and die repeatedly as cards. grimora raises the dead. magnificus paints his students, immortalizing them. and p03 scans its bots. and the end of the game is seeing them realize (or, on grimora's part, having already accepted) that they cannot postpone the inevitable (specifically magnificus's "Nothing beautiful can last.")

these answers may be a bit long. oop! but thank u again for sending me these!! :^D had a lot of fun answering (Ask Meme)

[chilly-moss]

Not a mutual at all but this seemed really fun so I did it anyways :) Preface: I am probably wrong about this list in some ways because I forget a lot of games I used to play! Even the really good ones!!! So most of these are games I played in the last 2-3 years or so, except for the final row, you'll see why :) Row 1 and 2: the ones that stuck. These are the games that don't really fit into one cohesive category other that wowsers!!! I really really liked these ones, for one reason or another.

Disco Elysium: My explanation cannot do this game justice. Watch a spoiler-free review or video essay about or just play it yourself! The only game in this list where I remember I cried.

Pentiment: There is so much love put into this game!!!!! The style, the letters, the story! There's so much research done into its history and so much time spent meticulously crafting every fine detail! The game itself is in no way perfect, but it dangles the pretty keys well enough in my face that I loved every second of it anyways!

Dishonored: Got this on sale when I remembered all the praise for it and wow it's deserved! I love how I can still be stealthy without needing to be hitman-levels of patient (no offense to hitman, just really impatient). The story is pretty fine and I imagine the second one is just as good, though I didn't finish it yet.

Cultist Simulator: Impeccable worldbuilding! Or...lack thereof I guess? IDK, Alexis Kennedy is notorious for being "anti-worldbuilding" though there's still a lot of it here hmmmm. Still, the Hours and the lore are something on a scale I haven't seen before (though that might just be me).

Ghostrunner: Amazing soundtrack, killer boss fights, makes me feel like a badass, not really anything more to say. It's the first movement shooter (slasher?) I played.

Card Shark: I kid you not this game sent me into a card magic phase. They actually use irl tricks and teach them to you (although mostly on a gameplay level only). The story is awesome and the art is too!

A House of Many Doors: I love the story and the inclusivity of all the characters. It's all very vibrant but doesn't fail to set the bleak undertone of the story.

Inscryption: I can't talk too much about this without spoiling a lot, but if you know you know. Great soundtrack too :)

Cassette Beasts: ohohohohohohohohohoho. The SOUNDTRACK, the ART, the STORY, the CHARACTER, MWAHMWAHMWAH ALL MY KISSES TO THIS GAME.

Danganronpa (the whole series): Honestly was a little hesitant to add this considering the rep the community has, so I don't dwell on it too long. I like the games, especially because me and my friends were live dubbing the second and third game.

Ok this is a lot longer than I expected oops, SPEED ROUNDS

Row 3: The chillaxers. Just some games I like if I had a rough day and want to wind down.

Row 4: The thinkers. Puzzle games! I'm not the best at them but I like them nonetheless.

Row 5: The originals. The first games I played! LBP 2 is the absolute first one ever and watch dogs was my first "18+ rated" game. The other three are all games I played very early on.

HONORABLE MENTIONS (aka I messed up and completely forgot about these but remembered while writing and am too lazy to edit the list): Sunless Sea, Splatoon (HOW COULD I FORGET YOU), Mario and Sonic winter Olympics (Nintendo DS), Nintendogs, Spyro (on my nephew's PlayStation) and Kirby's epic Yarn

Favourite games chart!

I saw everyone doing this fun little thing on bsky and I wanted to join!! (Here's where you can make one if you want: https://topsters.org/ )

It was actually so hard to pick so many "favourite" games without feeling like I was watering down the concept of favourite. I overcame this feeling by sorting these into different little categories.

First row is my current top 5 (in no particular order).

Second row is the artsy kids, the ones that really have beautiful music and/or artistic direction, that I could recommend to basically anyone and they'd at least agree that they're really pretty games even if they didn't like them.

Third row is the nostalgia corner, the ones I played when I was a kid and that really stuck with me.

Fourth row is the fun ones, I don't necessarily have a strong emotional connection to them but I had so much fun playing them I want more.

The last row is the joker row, where I put games that either are unfinished (Ultrakill, Deltarune), I haven't finished yet (Ultrakill, Library of Ruina), or… are just as bad as they're good (Genshin Impact). Seriously don't get me started on Genshin Impact. I love it I truly do but man.

Special mention for Othercide for the 1st boss experience that absolutely blew my mind. I would have put it on the list for this alone, but it gave me anxiety and that made me never finish the game. I'll get back to it one day. Listen to the soundtrack, folks, it's got some bangers.

(I tried not to put 2 games from the same series/franchise, like for ex I only TOTK even though I also played BOTW and I like it about as much, I put 1 Ace Attorney -well it's a duology but whatever- eve though there's many others that i also really love. I did put 2 zeldas but they're different enough imo that's it's fine. I also put 3/4 Supergiant Games ones but is it truly my fault if all their games are so good. And yeah there's 2 FF games too. What do you want me to do. There's so many FFs out there and they're probably all good I've only played these 2 from the main series and they're both in my favs I can't do anything about that.)(Anyways I think that's all.)